Thursday, March 26, 2015

Know Your Hanuman before you Attack

Hanuman is a chiranjeevi. That means he lives eternally. If
someone has just thought that I have referred to google.com, he/she is
mistaken. My knowledge of Indian mythology comes from books ranging from Mathew
M.Kuzhiveli’s Balan Books to Vettam Mani MA’s ‘Puranik Encyclopaedia’, from
Ezhuthacchan’s poetry to the stories from mythologies retold my various writers
in Malayalam and English. So when I say Hanuman is a chiranjeevi, I cannot
forget Aswathama, the cursed son of Dronacharya, the Guru of Pandavas and
Kauravas. In Kuttikrishna Marary’s words, Aswathama is a chiranjeevi who is
supposed to live for eons with his curse emblazoned on his forehead. In us,
chiranjeevis manifest in various ways. Hanuman manifests in us when we are too
loyal to a cause, ready to rip open our chests to show our loyalty to the
master. And when we deliberately take a position at the feet of the lord, we
become Hanumans. There is no wonder why the extremists amongst Hindus like
Hanuman so much.

When I read the news of some Hindu extremists thrashing up
four Dalit men for entering a temple in order to worship the idol of Hanuman, I
think about the ways in which Hanuman is incorporated into the mainstream
Hindutva ideology. In fact Hanuman belongs to a backward caste, if he is not a
Dalit. Hanuman is Vayuputra, the son of Air God. He is also the son of Anjana.
Hanuman is called Maruti from his father’s side and Anjaneya from mother’s
side. Hanuman got the name Hanuman from the shape of his jaw bones and upper
lips. Hanu manav should be the original word. Hanuman had a pronounced jaw bone
and a cleft lips; that means he was not like Ram or Lakshmana or like any other
Hindu God. He was dark, hairy and different looking. Ram and Lakshman meet him
when they are in search of Sita abducted by Ravana. Before Hanuman becomes the
devoted servant of Ram, in the tussle between Bali and Sugreev, two ‘monkey’
chieftains, Ram has taken the side of Sugreev and has done away with a self
respecting Bali. That means, the tribe that was represented by Bali was
subjugated by Ram. Hanuman could not have been a rebel. He joined the force
like Sugreev. Later in Lanka we see Vibheeshan, the brother of Ravan, deserting
his brother and joining forces with Ram.

This is how rebellion is appropriated into the mainstream
mythologies to naturalize the rebels into the fold of the dominant. Hanuman’s
distorted look was a problem and there needed a justification for calling him a
monkey. Hence, we are told that Hanuman (Maruti, Anjaneya) was a very bold
child and once he saw the rising sun. Thinking that it was a ripe fruit the kid
Maruti flew up to the sun in order to eat it. Seeing that the world will be in
trouble without sun, Indra, the lord of Gods used his mighty sword called Vajra
to strike the kid down. The sword hit the child at his lips and jaw bones and
he fell fainted. Father Air (Vayu) was so angry that he decided to stop all the
movements. The world was frozen at that moment. Once again there was a divine
intervention through appeasing. The boy was given eternal life and also was
given a new name, Hanuman. He became so devoted to the cause of serving Lord
Ram that he remained a bachelor, Brahmachari, till date. That’s why we see in
most of the akharas and gyms, they worship Hanuman. He does not waste his
semen, which is considered to be the seat of all powers and also he does proper
exercises to keep his body fit. Remember he could lift the Martva Mala (Hill
Marutva). When Ravna used poisonous arrows against Ram and Lakshman, they fell
fainted. Hanuman was asked to get the herb ‘mruthasanjeevani’ from Marutva
Mala. Hanuman flew to the spot where the hill stood and as he could not find
the particular herb, he brought the whole hill back to the war field. Muscles
work where intelligence fails. It was almost like brining a medical store home
for the simple reason that one lost the prescription. Most of the people who
vouch by Hanuman have taken this story very seriously.

The appropriation of dissent or difference into the
mainstream Hindutva has been an ongoing process even during the period of
mythological formulations. There was another Bali during the fifth incarnation
of Lord Vishnu. He ruled over the south of India (today’s Kerala) and was a very
just king. Lord Vishnu took the form of Vamana (a dwarf) and pushed him to the
nether world through an act of deception and treachery. If Bali was a just
king, why did Lord Vishnu kill him at all? Doesn’t the story reek with the
smell of North subjecting the south or rather the Vaishnava cult overpowering
the Shaiva cult. In his eighth incarnation too, as Ram, Lord Vishnu kills Bali.
Here the Bali is a self respecting monkey king. A south Indian must have been
referred as monkey in those days. The tail was an addition of imagination. Now
look at the word Bali (which is pronounced as Bali and Baali in respective contexts).
Bali means sacrifice in Sanskrit. Baali also could mean the same but Baali
later becomes Vaali and then the same word is also used for notifying a person
with criminal tendencies. In a way, these just kings were made into sacrificial
lambs or scapegoats for the proliferation of Vaishnavism. If so, who could be
originally these monkey gods? They must be the South Indian musclemen, who were
the rulers of the natural world, delivering justice to their subjects. Then comes
the subjection by the North Indian kings. And they are forced to live in
permanent menial status, indisputably and unquestioningly.

When I see, South Indian boys thrashing up their Dalit
brothers, they are just playing the roles of renegades from within a community.
There is a difference between a Kashmiri Hindu, a Manipuri Hindu, a Bengali
Hindu, a Maratha Hindu and a Karnataka Hindu or a Kerala Hindu or a Tamil
Hindu. When a Karnataka Hindu thrashes up another Karnataka Hindu only because
the latter is born into a ‘lower’ caste, he is not in fact serving the causes
of a Kashmiri Hindu or a Punjabi Hindu. They in fact do not want a Kannadiga
Hindu’s endorsement for their kind of Hinduism. When the whole of South India
is seen in an imaginary Dalit-hood within the mythological perspective of
Hindutva, what is the point in beating up some Dalit men for entering in a
temple? That too, a Hanuman temple. Hanuman is a originally a monkey god,
therefore a Dalit/South Indian God. So how can one South Indian bash up another
South Indian for entering their own god’s temple? If they think that the
thrashers are automatically included in the larger fold of Brahminical
Hinduism, they are not. Mr.Modi’s OBC-ness is not discussed because he has made
that into a virtue and made votes, business boost and political gain out of it.
What would these thrashers gain by upholding their ‘Hindutva’? Open your eyes
and listen carefully, Hanuman is a Chiranjeevi. He has crossed the Dwapara Yuga
in the form of a very old monkey (and shamed another muscle man, Bheem) and
must be somewhere around like a Ninja Master, wise in knowledge and might. He
will not justify your acts. As I said earlier, Aswathama carries his curse on
his forehead and he is a chiranjeevi. Hanuman wears his age and wisdom and
roams around in our streets, eternally. He knows that there is no master and no
disciple, there is master and no servant, when master and servant are one and
the same, there occurs Ram because Ram is the way to reverse ‘MAR’ (death). A
chiranjeevi only can tell you this. Stop killing your brother for entering my
temple, walking my path, leading their rightful life...stop killing because the
more you kill the more you invert your RAM. Ram is here with me, in the street,
with Kabir and all those who have burnt their homes called ego and fanaticism.